Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/161

 very pink of Asia, a youth bought for a sum bigger than the entire fortune of the warlike Tullus or Ancus, more valuable, in short, than all the chattels of all the kings of Rome. That being so, when you are thirsty look to your swarthy Ganymede. The page who has cost so many thousands cannot mix a drink for a poor man; but then his beauty, his youth, justify his disdain! When will he get as far as you? When does he listen to your request for water, hot or cold? It is beneath him to attend to an old dependent; he is indignant that you should ask for anything, and that you should be seated while he stands. All your great houses are full of saucy slaves. See with what a grumble another of them has handed you a bit of hard bread that you can scarce break in two, or lumps of dough that have turned mouldy—stuff that will exercise your grinders and into which no tooth can gain admittance. For Virro himself a delicate loaf is reserved, white as snow, and kneaded of the finest flour. Be sure to keep your hands off it; take no liberties with the bread-basket! If you are presumptuous enough to take a piece, there will be someone to bid you put it down; "What, Sir Impudence? Will you please fill yourself from your proper tray, and learn the colour of your own bread?" "What?" you ask, "was it for this that I would so often leave my wife's side on a spring morning and hurry up the chilly Esquiline when the spring skies were rattling down the pitiless hail, and the rain was pouring in streams off my cloak?"

See now that huge lobster being served to my lord, all garnished with asparagus; see how his lordly breast distinguishes the dish; with what a tail he 75